I’ll be hosting a photography workshop at the Everett Square Theatre in Boston, MA on September 30, 2017. This will be a little different from the past workshops because the theater is a bit smaller than some I’ve held workshops in. Because of that I’m limiting the amount of people per session to six. Each session will be 2.5 hours long.
The first session will be from 9:00 AM – 11:30 AM and the second session will be from 12:00 PM – 2:30 PM. Each session will cost $35 to attend, and a portion of that goes directly to the owner to help maintain the building. You can both attend both sessions if you’d like more time in the theater. I look forward to seeing some of you (and the pictures you’ll take) at the theater!
It’s time for another summer print sale! All prints will be $20 – $50 off from now until August 10. Check out the current prints being offered at http://www.mlambrosphotography.com/store/
The available sizes and sale prices are:
8″x12″ – $30.00
12″x18″ – $75.00
16″x24″ – $125.00
Images are printed on Kodak Professional Endura Supra paper.
If there’s an image you’d like a print of, but do not see it on the prints page e-mail me at matt@mlambrosphotography.com. Payment is accepted via Paypal, or credit card. Prints are shipped via USPS or FedEx.
There have been changes to some of the theaters I’ve photographed over the years, so it’s time for another update.
Fox Theatre Fullerton, CA.
The auditorium ceiling at the Fox Theatre in Fullerton, CA has been restored since I first visited it in 2014. New LED ceiling lights were installed at the same time.
Lobby, Paramount Theatre – Marshall, Texas
The lobby of the Paramount Theatre in Marshall, Texas has been converted into a performance venue by the owners of Musicians Unlimited. Musicians Unlimited operates out of one of the Paramount’s former retail spaces. They also restored the theater’s marquee, and held a relighting ceremony in 2016.
View from the balcony of the Paramount Theatre in Long Branch, NJ.
The former Loew’s Theatre Complex (Loew’s Poli Theatre, Loew’s Majestic Theatre and the Savoy Hotel) are slated to be redeveloped over the next few years. First, the Majestic will be renovated and reopened as a performing arts center. Then, the Savoy Hotel will reopen as a 100 room hotel. Last, the Loew’s Poli (Palace) Theatre will become a banquet ballroom, gym, and a “family friendly indoor park.” Construction is slated to begin in 2018.
RKO Keith’s Theatre – Queens, NY
Work began at the RKO Keith’s Theatre in Queens, NY in late June 2017, 31 years after it closed. However, a stop work order went into effect the same day delaying the start of construction once again. The auditorium is slated to be demolished in the fall of 2017. Portions of the lobby, as well as the original ticket booth are slated to be incorporated into the condo building that will be constructed where the auditorium once stood.
Before and After, Embassy Theatre – Port Chester, NY
The Embassy Theatre in Port Chester, NY was gutted in the spring of 2017. No plans for the future of the space have been made public. Gutted photo courtesy of Gaby Gusmano.
In late 1925, Sam Warner, of Warner Brothers Pictures, convinced his brothers to spend $1.25 million ($17.1 million when adjusted for inflation) to design and build a theater to showcase their new film sound synchronization technology, Vitaphone. Vitaphone, in which the sound track of a film was printed on phonograph records that would play on a turntable attached to and in time with the projector, was the result of a partnership between Warner Brothers and Western Electric’s Bell Laboratories.
The Warner Theatre had a 4 manual, 28 rank Marr & Colton organ. The organ was originally installed in the Warners’ (Piccadilly) Theatre in New York.
Hollywood was chosen as the location for the theater, and Warner hired San Francisco-based architect G. Albert Lansburgh to design and oversee the construction of the theater. The theater was intended to be ready in time for the premiere of “The Jazz Singer,” since the film had several scenes that used the Vitaphone process. However, Warner Bros realized in late 1927 that the theater would not be ready in time for the premiere, and it was moved to the Warners’ (Piccadilly) Theatre in New York City.
Lansburgh also designed the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles.
The Hollywood Pacific Theatre opened on April 26, 1928 as the Warner Brothers Theatre. It was designed in the atmospheric style with colonnades in the Italianate Beaux Arts style surrounding the orchestra level walls. However, unlike most atmospheric theaters, the Warner did not have twinkling lights in the ceiling. The 2,700 seat theater was the first theater designed specifically for “talkies” in Hollywood. Promotional articles by Warner Bros proclaimed that the theater has “the most advanced and largest Vitaphone equipment ever installed.”
The night before the premiere of “The Jazz Singer” in New York City, Sam Warner died of a brain hemorrhage.
“Glorious Betsy,” starring Conrad Nagel and Dolores Costello, was the feature presentation at the opening and Al Jolson, the star of “The Jazz Singer,” served as the Master of Ceremonies. A plaque remembering Sam Warner, who died six months before the theater opened, was unveiled in the theater’s lobby. The theater was owned by Warner Brothers Pictures until 1953, when due to the verdict of United States Supreme Court case United States vs. Paramount Pictures, the studio was forced to spin off its theater holdings into a separate company. To accomplish this, Stanley Warner Theatres was formed in 1953, and later merged with the RKO Theatres Corp to become RKO Stanley Warner.
The theater is allegedly haunted by the ghost of Sam Warner.
After many years as a first run theater, the Warner was turned into a Cinerama house, a popular widescreen format, on April 29, 1953. The seating had to be reduced to 1,500, and sections of the proscenium were removed due to the new screen being so wide. It was renamed the Warner Cinerama Theatre, and showed “This is Cinerama,” a film designed to take advantage of the new widescreen, for 133 weeks before ending in 1955. A remodel in 1961 saw the Cinerama screen removed and much of the ornate plasterwork in auditorium covered by drapes. This only lasted a year before a new Cinerama screen was installed. RKO-Stanley Warner sold the theater to Pacific Theatres during the 80-week run of “2001, A Space Odyssey,” and the theater was renamed the Hollywood Pacific Theatre.
Radio transmitter towers for KFWB, a radio station owned by Warner Bros, were installed on the roof of the building. The station’s call sign stands for “Keep Filming Warner Brothers.”
The theater closed on January 31, 1978 so that the auditorium could be divided into a triple screen theater. Two 550-seat screens were added by separating the balcony level from the orchestra level. It reopened in April of 1978 as the Pacific 1-2-3. Due to structural damage caused by an earthquake in January of 1994 and water damage in the basement from construction of the Red Line subway, the Pacific was forced to close the theater on August 15, 1994. However, in the years after the theater closed an occasional screening took place in the theater on the main level. The balcony screens remained closed due to the structural damage. Beginning in 2002, the Entertainment Technology Center used the theater to test new digital projection technology, ending in 2006. The theater was then taken over by the Ecclesia Hollywood Church, who held services in the downstairs auditorium until July 2013. It is currently unused, with no public plans for its revival.
Carol Burnett, actress and comedian, worked as an usher at the Warner in the early 1950s, but was fired after she advised to patrons to wait until a film was finished before entering the auditorium. In 1975, when Burnett was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame she was asked where she would like it placed, and she’s quoted as saying “Right in front of where the old Warner Brothers Theater was, at Hollywood and Wilcox.”The theatre was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument February 9, 1993.
The Paris Cinema in Worcester, Massachusetts originally opened as the Capitol Theatre on December 11, 1926. It was designed by architect Roger Garland for the Worcester Capitol Company. An atmospheric theater, the 2,500 seat Capitol was designed with a blue dome ceiling and side walls that looked like a Spanish villa. Clouds were projected across the ceiling to complete the illusion that the audience was sitting under the night’s sky. Lou Zoeller, a songwriter, and Janet “the World’s Smallest Prima Donna” Bodwell, two vaudeville performers, played at the theater during the opening week.
A Wurlitzer Opus #1492 organ was installed in the theater when it opened. It is now located in the Rochester Museum and Science Center in Rochester, NY.
On Dec. 13, 1966, the Capitol closed for renovations, and reopened as the Paris Cinema on March 4, 1967. The Paris was divided in two the following year by separating the balcony from the orchestra level. It was billed as “Worcester’s first theater within a theater” when it opened on April 10, 1968. “Bonnie and Clyde” starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway was the first film shown in the former balcony, now known as the Paris Cinema 2, and “Planet of the Apes” starring Charlton Heston was shown at the Paris Cinema 1. During the 70’s the Paris showed exploitation films downstairs, and adult films in the former balcony, now called the “Adult Penthouse” after another name change.
View from the side of the balcony.
On June 29, 1974, Francis W. Sargent, the Governor of Massachusetts at the time, signed a obscenity legislation into law, which forced the Paris to stop showing adult films. This lead to the theater closing once again in 1977. Cinema 320, a group of cinephiles, rented the theater in the fall of 1980 to show films that weren’t normally shown at larger theater chains. This lasted until April 1, 1982, when the theater’s owner informed the group that he had found a new tenant that was willing to pay more and they had a month to vacate. The final film shown at the Paris by Cinema 320 was “Casablanca.” The Paris reopened as an adult theater in June of 1982.
The Paris closed for a short time in July 2001 after one of the walls in the upper theaters collapsed.
During the early 2000’s the Paris closed and reopened a few times. Worcester police began to raid the theater due to allegations that sex acts were taking place during the films. The Paris closed for good in January 2006 after 29 people were arrested during one weekend raid. Robert J. Hurwitz, the owner of the Paris Cinema, sold the building in July 2006 to the Mayo Group for $1.15 million. Mayo had begun converting the buildings around the theater into a student village under the name Worcester Commons, LLC, but did not have any immediate plans for the Paris.
The Paris Cinema sign was donated to Preservation Worcester in 2012, and sold at a fundraising event that fall.
In 2016, the Mayo Group sought a waiver to the city’s one year demolition delay ordinance for historic buildings from the Worcester Historical Commission. According to the Mayo Group, it would cost at least $21 million to stabilize the building and bring it up to code, but only $500,000 to completely demolish it. They argued that keeping the building standing another year would pose an economic hardship for them. The Historical Commission voted 4-1 to grant the waiver. Demolition began in the summer of 2017, and they plan on turning the space into a beer garden with an outdoor performance area.
View of the auditorium from the side of the balcony.
The Logan Theatre in Philadelphia, PA opened on January 24, 1924. It was built by the Stanley Company of America for $1.1 million, or $15.5 million when adjusted for inflation. The 1894-seat theater was designed by the architectural firm of Hoffman and Henon, who also designed the now mostly demolished Boyd Theatre in downtown Philadelphia. Designed in the Adamesque style, the plasterwork in the auditorium featured mythological creatures, and there was a fresco of a sailing ship in the lobby. The building also had a large ballroom on the second floor, known as the “Waltz Studio.”
View of the auditorium from the stage.
Originally a silent film theater, the opening day celebration included a showing of “The Common Law,” starring Corinne Griffith and Conway Tearle. The film was accompanied by music from the Kimball organ, and the house orchestra, which was known as “The Loganians.” Then-mayor of Philadelpha W. Freeland Kendrick and Jules E. Mastbaum, the president of the Stanley Company, spoke at the the opening. Like most of its contemporaries, the Logan eventually switched over from silent films to “talkies,” or motion pictures with sound.
The former “Waltz Ballroom” space.
The Logan was closed in 1972, and in May of 1973 the building was sold by RKO Stanley Warner for $350,000 to the Deliverance Evangelist Church (DEC), one of the largest congregations in the area at the time. DEC made some alterations to the theater, including adding a closed circuit television system, as the theater was often filled to capacity. This allowed people to watch the three-hour-long services from the former Waltz Studio ballroom. DEC moved out of the Logan in 1992, and the theater was abandoned. Soon after, the roof began to leak, causing major water damage.
The lobby of the Logan Theatre.
Dr. Owen Williamson purchased the Logan in 2005, and began to restore it as a memorial to his late wife, Claretilda. Since purchasing the building he has repaired the roof, repainted the interior and updated some of the wiring. Dr. Williamson plans to reopen the theater as a live music venue with a restaurant named “Claretildaville,” However, the building remains closed to this day.
The Logan has a relatively plain interior when compared to other theaters built around the same time.During the years the Logan was a church a baptismal font was on the stage.When the theater opened, afternoon matinees cost fifteen cents, evening shows a quarter or thirty cents.Gold spray paint was used to repaint the gold in the auditorium.View from the center of the balcony.
